OLDSMOBILE 88 STEREO PROBLEM

1994 Oldsmobile 88 • 85,000 miles

I have a 1994 Oldsmobile 88 Royale. I'm replacing the car stereo with a new Kenwood DDX719 double-din unit. My problem is that the wiring required behind the unit is extremely difficult to route well enough so that the unit can be pushed far enough into the dash to fasten in. Does anyone have any advice for routing these wires more easily when I don't have access to physically reaching in while I'm pushing the unit into the dash? Barring that, how do I go about removing the climate control panel above the unit so I can get my hand in there to handle the wires?

If you go to a local stereo store, you can have a wiring adapter ordered for you. It will plug right into your stock wiring harness connector. Then it will give you a diagram of what wires to connect from it to the radio. This will make the package neater and less cumbersome. You may not have to remove the climate controls.
If you do it is a very delciate process as the trimm panels you must remove are fragile and held in by push pins made of plastic or held in by the lip of other trim panels or even screws that are covered by small little plugs to cover them. Then you must remove the controls after removing, and you won't know how much you have to remove until you get into it, the trim panels. This can lead to air vent door controls being mis aligned and even temperature controls being changed. That means you would have to calibrate the entire climate control cable system by hand and it is not easy. You can break parts of the climate control doing this.
This all depends on how far you have to move the climate controls. I just wanted to let you know that you can't tell what has to be done or how much will have to be re-calibrated and then being risk being broken until you start to take it apart. You may want to take your car to a stereo shop and have them instal it as the responsibility of breaking or re-setting anything will be on them for the installation fee that they state. Make them stick to that if they say they had to do more because they should know what they are getting into.
If you have any steering wheel controls, you may lose them as they are generally run through the radio and when you remove the stock stereo it will disable them.
There is a great deal that goes into installing an aftermarket stereo in a nice car like yours. Just plan it out, research it, find a good stereo shop if you feel aprehensive, get a Haynes manual, it will aid in removing the climate controls.